Alisha+Ravi+-+Think+Tank

Think Tank Discussion – “The Nature of Language” Alisha Ravi

This week’s reading, “The Nature of Language”, and the following Think Tank discussion, made me rethink my ideas about how students use language, and how to teach my students to code-switch when in school. Thomas and Tchudi (1990) state: “a language is structured in ways that are rule-governed” (p. 32). “It is important to recognize that people are not normally conscious of their grammar. We call this knowledge tacit, like knowing how to breathe or cry”(p. 35). I found this idea interesting when thinking about the slang that my students use when speaking with their peers. They are clearly comfortable in the language that they are using, and do not think about the ‘unspoken rules’ that come with this language. They use words like “mad” and “violate” regularly. These words, while present in Standard English, have completely different connotations in this context. Teaching these students the structure of Standard English almost then becomes teaching them the structure of a foreign language. Like every other language, the ‘street language’ of my students “has its own rhetorical traditions, such as how to inform, beg, make love, or tell secrets” (Thomas & Tchudi, 1999, p. 46). Language is social entity. We can choose to use convergent or divergent language based on situations, and people that we interact with (Thomas &Tchudi, 1999). “Humans know intuitively that languages are social and are vastly adaptive in using them, changing as the situation requires” (Thomas & Tchudi, 1999, p. 43). Despite the ability to choose, we are limited to “which registers, dialects and variations [we] fully develop in [our] repertoires” (Thomas & Tchudi, 1999, 44). We have choices as to which registers to learn, and which to use in specific situations. Tchudi and Thomas note that “If a child is exposed to one variety [repertoire] in the home, one on the streets, one from schools, one on TV, and one from books and reading, the child develops proficiency in all of these variations, and an extraordinarily acute sense of which variety to use in which circumstances.” (p. 44). Many of my students have been resistant to using the English register that they hear in school, and are much more likely to use language from the street. I wonder if they are aware that they should be code-switching in school, and are consciously choosing to use a particular register to show solidarity, or if they are feeling the inadequacy that comes with not being proficient in a particular register (Thomas & Tchudi, 1999). I feel that the idea in the text is the most important for us, as educators, to be familiar with, and use to our advantage, is the idea that language is creative. It is amazing the way that that words can be added, changed and removed from a language. We have to follow a structure, but that structure is always changing. When I told my students that Shakespeare made up many words in his plays, they groaned and exclaimed that if Shakespeare was using made up words, why did they have to learn them. I then listed off a variety of words – all of which my students were familiar with - before telling them that these were words that Shakespeare invented and are now part of our repertoire. The same, I told them, applies to the slang terms that come and go with language we use on the streets. Familiar words with new meanings are constantly appearing and disappearing from their vocabularies. It is essential for educators to recognize the changing language, and be aware words and their meanings that students are using among their peers. The ideas about language presented in this chapter made me rethink the ways I was trying to teach my students Standard English. I believe, that it might be more effective for me to recognize and validate the patterns in the language that is familiar to them and make connections between that and Standard English.